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Friday, December 11, 2009

African Muslims Fleeing To Israel

Africans, mostly Muslim, are fleeing their war torn countries on the African continent and seeking asylum in Israel. In order to get there however they have to cross the Sinai desert in Egypt where many are shot and killed.

Why not just settle in Egypt and live among their Muslim brothers? Very simply it is because in the Muslim world they are not accepted. There is a very big dislike for African Muslims among the Middle Eastern Muslims. They view them as little more then slaves.

Beyene is one of almost 17,000 people currently seeking asylum in Israel. Over the past two years, as routes to Europe through Libya and Morocco have closed off or become more difficult to traverse, thousands of migrants have headed to Israel. But the route, which usually takes them from the Horn of Africa through Egypt's Sinai region and then across the border, has its own dangers. In Europe, coast-guard patrols might try to turn back boats full of refugees and asylum seekers, or detain people only to send them home later. The luckiest ones may end up being accepted for asylum and then dispatched around Europe.

In Egypt, the response can be more immediate. Nongovernmental organizations such as the Hotline for Migrant Workers and the African Refugee Development Center say that Egyptian border police have shot dead several hundred migrants seeking to cross the border into Israel for work and asylum over the past few years. "From both Israeli soldiers and refugees who crossed the border we can tell for sure that the Egyptians almost always shoot, they shoot to kill and very often they hit the asylum seekers," says Sigal Rozen of Hotline, an independent group that helps asylum seekers in Israel. At the Israeli cemetery in Hazor, Rozen points to 25 graves marked "Anonymous." "These were asylum seekers," she says, "who were shot by the Egyptians and died from their wounds in Israel."

Egypt cites security concerns, and that argument carries a certain amount of weight, but even the ones that they accept into their country are either then routed to Europe or subjected to such harsh treatment that they have no option but to continue their flight.

But that's unlikely to stop people trying. For 25-year-old Adam Khamise, who fled the war-torn Sudanese province of Darfur and arrived in Israel in July 2007, the choice was clear. "In Egypt I was always being harassed by the police and I wasn't allowed to work. So how could I make money to buy food?" In Israel, Rozen says, asylum seekers may be turned down for work permits, but a majority finds work, because "officials turn a blind eye." Khamise says there was another reason for his journey. He decided to head for Israel after learning about the Holocaust. "The story of the Jewish people is similar to ours in Darfur, where we are being persecuted as Muslims. That's why I thought Israel would protect us."

The wars being waged in Africa are to a large degree Muslim on Muslim, however there are those exceptions where they are truly Christian on Muslim, so while Christians can not wash their hands of some of the violence on the African continent, they are not the main instigators.

This is just further evidence however of the charity of Muslims and how they always talk about being accepting of others and a religion of peace, their actions always betray them.